The  life of Henry Van Dyke........

Henry van dyke was born on 10^th November, 1852 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Henry Jackson, a Presbyterian minister and his mother was Henrietta Ashmead Van Dyke. His father’s love for nature and fishing made him instill a love of the outdoor world and a pleasure of finding peace along the streams and under the trees in his son as well. Henry Jackson also acquainted his son to art of living in the open and also to the beauty and wonders of time.

Henry van dyke was a preacher, a teacher, and a writer , he was a Presbyterian clergyman, an author and most of all a poet. He graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute at the age of sixteen. He later continued his studies at Princeton University, where he received a B.A in 1873 and earned an M.A in 1876. He went to Germany, a year later for two years at the University of Berlin, after which in 1879 he returned to America and became a Presbyterian minister. In the first few years of his ministry he served as a country- loving pastor at the United Congregational Church of Newport, Rhode Island. In December 1881, he married Ellen Reid and they had nine children.

Henry Van Dyke had an attractive personality who served as the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York City in 1883 for the next eighteen years. At the age of 32, van dyke published his first book, The Reality of Religion, in 1884, he published his second book, The Story of the Psalms 3 years later. He mostly devoted his life to the ministry, but never ceased to be a teacher. In 1900, he became the Murray Professor of English Literature at Princeton University.

In 1908, he became a visiting lecturer at the University of Paris, a few years later in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson, a friend and former classmate of Van Dyke, appointed him as the ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg. After his resignation as an ambassador, he returned to the U.S and joined the chaplain’s corps of the U.S Naval Reserve where he served as a lieutenant commander, and wrote an introduction to the Navy Chaplain’s Manual (1918). He returned to Princeton in 1919 to continue teaching after which he retired in 1923.

On April 10, 1933, Henry Van Dyke died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, with his family at his bedside. “He was a minister of God, a minister of his country and a minister of humanity. Henry van Dyke is the epitome of an eminent writer and leader in the fields of religion, literature, education, diplomacy, public service, and nature.”

In 1908, he became a visiting lecturer at the University of Paris, a few years later in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson, a friend and former classmate of Van Dyke, appointed him as the ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg. After his resignation as an ambassador, he returned to the U.S and joined the chaplain’s corps of the U.S Naval Reserve where he served as a lieutenant commander, and wrote an introduction to the Navy Chaplain’s Manual (1918). He returned to Princeton in 1919 to continue teaching after which he retired in 1923.

On April 10, 1933, Henry Van Dyke died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, with his family at his bedside. “He was a minister of God, a minister of his country and a minister of humanity. Henry van Dyke is the epitome of an eminent writer and leader in the fields of religion, literature, education, diplomacy, public service, and nature.”